Russia is openly supporting initiatives regarding the formation of regional power blocks by aspiring energy nations such as Venezuela, Iran and Algeria, which are contrary to the interests of the leading industrial nations. The strategists in the Kremlin are thus aiming at a certain readjustment of the outcome of the Cold War that has been decided in favour of the Western powers. They are hoping to establish new Russian spheres of influence roughly along the lines of the direction of the global energy trade. If Russia should succeed in establishing a “Gas OPEC” within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, which is on the agenda of the next Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in April of this year, this organisation would immediately become an entity of great global political weight. Already Russia has received the assent of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan with regard to its proposals for cooperation in the field of gas.

Following the schemes of Kremlin-strategists the energy-producing states in the Middle East, Latin America, and North Africa should use their resources for the technological, military and social development of their respective regions. The members of Russia’s National Security Council are thereby considering a long-term transition phase which is expected to result in a world-wide power equilibrium. Traditional alliances systems, especially NATO, are to lose their significance in the process of the formation of regional blocks. With their weight, these regional blocks would be able to effectively influence the decisions of the United Nations.

Russia’s state-corporations and their specialists are expected to further this process of regional political consolidation, for instance Gazprom helping with the developed of the planned gas-pipeline that is to connect Venezuela with Brazil and Argentine

A council of experts descendant from the Soviet-era

The concept of the development of regional powers blocks as a means to enhance Russia’s position on the international stage has been devised by a number of experts, all of whom who were educated, trained and started their careers during the Soviet era. These men being:

1. Sergey Rogov, the director of the Russian Institute for American and Canadian Matters (ISKAN); he is the son of the former KGB-officer Mikhail Rogov alias ‘Cymbal’, whose operating territory was Western Europe.

2. Vladislav Tsherchuk, intelligence expert and desk-chief with the Russian National Security Council.

3. Anatoly Turkonov, director of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

4. Igor Diykonov, regional expert on Latin America of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; he is the son of the former KGB-officer Dmitri Alekseyevich Diykonov who was an expert on creating social disturbances, strikes and terror in Latin America where he was stationed.

5. Andrey Kokoshin, senior politician and intelligence expert on the United States.

6. Mikhail Meier, director of the Russian Institute for Asia and Africa at the Lomonossov University.

The National Security Council is going Latin

The Russian National Security Council is looking for a complementary partnership with the security strategists of its perceived global partners, by which they hope to influence decision-making outside framework of bilateral relations. According to Brazilian sources, Roberto da Mangabeira Unger, the Secretary of Long-term Planning, has been offered such a complementary partnership by Russia’s National Security Council. Da Mangabeira Unger already had a meeting with Medvedev in February, during which they presumably talked about closer collaboration between Russia and Brazil in the field of military aviation and hydro-electrical engineering.

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